From the category archives:

Shopping

Holiday Partying!

by agirlandhermutt on December 19, 2010

Guess who loves a partay?! This girl! Any opportunity to dress up and get fancy is one that I pounce on!

A holiday party is even better. The cheer, the merriment, the Christmas decorations…it puts me in quite the festive mood!

A few years ago The Scientist’s work threw the holiday party of all holiday parties. It was held at the Boston Public Library, which in general is just an amazing place to be in. If you ever visit the Boston area be sure to check out the older section of the library. Just beautiful.

I wasn’t as good with the camera that year, but the decorations were absolutely AMAZING. Each room had a different theme with a specialty cocktail and TONS of food. I had never seen anything like it before.

I was especially shocked to see these fun little creatures greeting us as we walked in.

Who even knew there was a service to have people dressed up as plants and trees?

The night was filled with dancing, drinking and mingling. It was kind of surreal! Seriously…don’t we look so young? I remember hunting that dress down from the GAP. I was obsessed with it.

The next year the party moved locations and ended up at the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel.

It was just as extravagant and entertaining. This was no run of the mill conference room pot luck holiday party. Shouldn’t all drinks be served from a woman in a table?!

The party this year moved again and we found ourselves at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The MFA just opened a whole new wing to the museum so I was excited to check out all of the changes.

We were greeted with a passion fruit champagne mixture, which ended up being my drink o’ the night. My fave part of the food situation was the dessert table. Hello pumpkin shots!

After some eating and noshing we walked the maze of the museum to find out where all the dancing was happening.

Have you ever walked a museum all on your own? Creepy but fun all at the same time!

Finally found it!

This is where the action was at. It was nuts and possibly a bit sweaty.

We all busted a few moves of our own too. So slick and fast you can’t even see them all! Winking smile

The Scientist and I were looking pretty smooth this year. Agree?!

I was absolutely in love with my dress this year. I knew I wanted something bright and colorful. I ended up ordering about 5 dresses from Macys.com and picked my fave. Fortunately for me it was the dress that was on sale for just $35! Woot.

What really pulled the whole outfit together for me was my jewelry.

I am a big accessories fan. You can make any outfit that much more fun by adding a necklace or some funky earrings. I searched high and low to pull together my jewelry. It ended up being a nice mix of Forever 21, Filene’s Basement, and Ann Taylor. Poor Ann Taylor is shuddering at the idea of being paired with Forever 21. Winking smile

I’m glad The Scientist lets me tag along for the festivities! I’m already on the hunt for the dress for next year. I see RED in my future!

Does your company do holiday parties? Are they fancy or laid back?

{ 19 comments }

Make it chunky…

by agirlandhermutt on September 17, 2010

I make funky tuna salad. I didn’t realize this until I had made some sandwiches to take to the beach for some friends. Apparently, using mustard to mix tuna up is not a regular happening around my peeps places. I knew this because of their disgusted looks after the first bite. Who knew?!

Well tonight, my little muffins, I made it even more awkward. I made *chunky* tuna salad. Rarely do you hear the word “chunky” used for anything rather than peanut butter and cookies, but tonight I am changing it all up!

Hello Chunky Tuna Salad!

The first and most important step…put a cute apron on! Seriously, I have a major obsession with aprons.

I bought this one from Boojiboo over on Etsy. She has a knack for interesting color and fabric combos.

[Source]

I have a few others that I like to throw in the mix. They are so handy for holding my cell phone and keeping my shirt from getting disgustingly wet at the sink. Two thumbs up for aprons!

Ok, back to our original programming…Chunky Tuna Salad!

In the mix:
-1 c. cauliflower
-2 3oz. cans of tuna
-2 tbsp plain greek yogurt
-1 tsp chili powder

*Steam cauliflower till it is tender and allow to cool.

*Mix together tuna and other ingredients. I added a little bit of chopped up chives. They were calling to me from the garden and I didn’t want to ignore them.

*Once cauliflower has cooled, mix it together with the tuna mixture.

I plopped a little helping onto the top of some mixed greens.

The texture of this tuna salad made my day! Plus, who doesn’t enjoy getting in a nice dose of veggies in an unusual way?!

I saved the extra for a sandwich this weekend. Mmm…

I’m feeling the urge to spend some quality time with Etsy.com and spend inappropriate amounts of money. No worries, I won’t. BUT I will put items in my cart and pretend to shop. Its the internet version of window shopping!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are you a Etsy shopper? I totally am! I even got my blog header there (you can read about it here). Tell me what you have bought OR sold yourself!

PS. I’m updating my recipe tab slowly, but surely. If you click on the Tuna Salad recipe on the recipes tab you will see that it now links to just the recipe. Hopefully that helps if you want to print or read it while cooking! Let me know what you think or if you have any friendly suggestions.

{ 5 comments }

Sun Shopping…

by agirlandhermutt on August 2, 2010

Do you have any summer traditions? Besides going to the beach and frequenting farmer’s markets, one of my favorite summer activities is to hit up the SoWa Market. Read about my previous outdoor shopping adventures here and here.

Boston was beautiful and I was feeling the urge to spend some $$$.

My first stop was to stop and smell the flowers. You have to take the time, ya know?!

This vendor had these amazing purple string beans too. I’ve never seen these before and I am fascinated! Has anyone tried these before?

My next stop was to my favorite tent for this year, FuzzyInk.

They have the coolest designs and the SOFTEST tshirts. I already bought one this year and fell in love with another design on this trip.

I hopped around to a few more places and tried to resist the urge to put myself in the poor house by purchasing everything in eyesight.

*Cute harmonica necklaces (that really work!) by Little Pancakes.

*Absolutely genius ergonomic pet feeders made out of recycled wine crates by The Green Mutt.

*Hula Hoops by Sun Circles. Seriously. The coolest thing I have seen at the market. They had collapsible and standard hoops. Such a great idea! I have the feeling I will own one soon!

*Beautiful jewelry by *Insert a Name That I Can’t Remember!* I will remember though and fix this.

After all that window shopping (and possibly a *little* bit of real shopping) I was starvin marvin. I bought a falafel wrap from South End Pita and took a pit stop.

Hey! Look who joined me at the market!

To wash my yummy falafel pita down I went for a classic Del’s Frozen Lemonade. These remind me of Damian’s from when I was a kid. Orange flavor was my fave! Was that just a southern thing?

My final stop of the day was to see a super busy tent, Sailor’s Swagger Pineapple Hot Sauce. Pineapple? Hot Sauce? Together? Hmm…

Oh my gosh…so good! It has a smoky quality that is stellar. It was fresh, tasty and just the right amount of heat. Even better, it was made out of quality ingredients. What you see below are the ONLY things that go into this hot sauce. How great is that?!